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Nicardipine can protect angioplasty patients from a deadly complication
12/Oct/2006: Nicardipine hydrochloride, a drug commonly used in the treatment of high blood pressure and angina (chest pain), can reverse the ‘no-reflow’ phenomenon that affects as many as 50,000 angioplasty patients, every year, according to researchers in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia. This drug belongs to the class of ‘Calcium Channel Blockers’.
Coronary Angioplasty is a medical procedure used to unblock coronary arteries, to restore proper blood supply to the heart. Arteries, which supply blood to the heart, get blocked due to the build up cholesterol plaques in their inner walls. The plaques block the blood flowing through the arteries, leading to the disruption of blood supply to the heart, eventually causing angina and myocardial infarction. During this treatment, the blockage inside the artery is opened-up with the help of a balloon catheter, restoring normal blood flow to the heart.
In some cases, patients who undergo coronary angioplasty, develop a ‘no-reflow’ condition, in which the blood supply to the heart continues to remain disrupted even after the blockage in the artery is cleared. When plaques dislodged in the angioplasty, release chemicals that cause the artery to spasm and block the blood flow to the heart, patients develop the no-reflow condition. Dr. Michael Savage, director of the catheterization laboratory and associate professor of medicine at Jefferson Medical College, said that no-reflow condition is a serious complication, since it increases the risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) and death in the patients.
Researchers at Thomson Jefferson University treated 72 angioplasty patients suffering from the no-reflow condition, with nicarpidine. They found that the drug reversed the no-reflow problem in 71 of the 72 patients and none of these 71 patients experienced low blood pressure, heart blocks or required a temporary pacemaker. The findings of this study will appear in the November’s issue of the journal ‘Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions’.
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